Mass screenings
by Jon Worley

Before this weekend, I really hadn't paid much attention to the current summer movie season. Despite a rather serious Kristin Scott Thomas fixation, I didn't have any urge to sit through The Horse Whisperer. I finally saw Deep Impact (with seven other viewers) on the Tuesday that Godzilla premiered. The only other movies I'd ventured to a theater to see had been Bulworth (with five other hardy souls) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (with four others, two of whom gave up about halfway through). But Friday and Saturday, I broke down and dove right in.

Braving a strangely-dressed crowd, I hit the X-Files movie with some friends. I knew I was in for some strangeness when picking up the tickets a few hours before the show. A large group of fans had already gathered in line for a screening which was still an hour and a half away. At the front of the line was a boyfriend/girlfriend pair. The boyfriend wasn't happy to be there.

"Look at this," he said. "It's the geek parade. I can't believe we're here." Here, of course, was a gray mall in the York suburbs. Decidedly not upscale. The line formed at the base of the stairs to the K-Mart which anchors the mall along with Hills (which is a cut-rate discount store, if you know what I mean). The girlfriend, on the other hand, was utterly in thrall to the moment. Dressed in black. Black jeans, black X-Files Expo t-shirt, black power glove thingy on her right hand and forearm (all the folks I know who are familiar with the show can't place the glove's significance). She simply smiled through her boyfriend's griping.

When our group arrived for the late late show (as late as it gets in not-quite Amish country, anyway), we also waited in line a bit and managed to get decent seats. Seconds after we sat down, the geek parade really did shuffle in. Five guys, all in severe Coke bottle glasses, and two girls of the mousy sort. Kids who might be interesting once they outgrow their teenage awkwardness, but right now they're about as appetizing as raisins scattered on top of cherries jubilee. The boys snorted and grunted in odd patterns. They knew every single episode. They could discuss, in depth, the merits of all the guest writers of the previous season. As a joke, I loudly told a member of my group that Edgar Rice Burroughs was going to be writing an episode next fall. The guys in front picked up on that and ran. Hey, if Burroughs is a possibility, why not Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov, right?

All derision aside, the moment the movie cranked up I could see that the intent of the movie (and I assume the show, though I've never sat through an episode of the X-Files) was to make fun of conspiracy theories and those who follow and perpetuate them. Yes, conspiracy is the stock and trade of the plot. But when you place Neanderthals in a glacier in North Texas during an ice age in 35,000 B.C., well, obviously there's a big joke going on. At one point in the movie, a lone snow cat is laboring furious across the Antarctic landscape. One of the funniest images I've seen in a movie in ages. No one else in the theater laughed.

Oh well. If nothing else, the X-Files movie was entertaining. Escapist drivel, but tastefully done. And it's always nice to see a movie in a theater full of people. Not the same as being one of two white people in a sold-out screening of Menace II Society (a truly exhilarating experience), but fun nonetheless.

Saturday I went to The Truman Show. More than half-full during the matinee, this also qualifies as a true summer movie experience. And, as is often the case with summer movies, the show did not live up to its billing.

The Truman Show is one of those movies that is amusing enough as it passes by, but completely dead in the end. Soulless. Reminded me a whole lot of Forest Gump. Philosophically light as a feather, stylistically heavy as plutonium. Yeah, a couple nice questions are raised, but there's no subtlety. I completely agree with the notion that artificially created safe zones (like, say, the intent behind suburbs and secular private schools) are way stations for the human spirit, but this movie is so ham handed and bludgeoning with its message that I left the theater feeling abused. Great movie? Not even a good one.

But that really doesn't matter. My little mini movie blitz has me all psyched for the summer movie season, even though there are few attractive prospects. Baseketball looks completely retarded, though the notion that two writers could become so famous that they're contracted to star in a movie with two of the top bimbos around is something that I can't (and don't want to) argue with too much. There's Something About Mary, on the other hand, has gotten astonishing buzz in every theater I've been in lately. In fact, I was bummed when there wasn't a Mary trailer before Truman. But even if that movie turns out to be good, we're still gonna have to sit through lots more explosions and bared breasts (exploding breasts, on the other hand, are right out) before fall rolls around and most of the "Oscar-worthy" movies hit theaters in places other than York County, Penn. This thought so depresses me I'm not even going to begin to go off on Armageddon.

Not to worry. There's plenty of other movies out there. One thing I know: I'm first in line Friday for Out of Sight. Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle and Albert Brooks doing Elmore Leonard? The only way that movie sucks is if they change the ending.

Of course, it is a summer movie, home of bright colors and happy endings. Still, if they mess with Dutch, I might have to hurt someone.

Jon Worley skips out of his home base whenever possible, watching most of his movies in the greater Baltimore metro area.

return to the Shut up, I'm talking page
return to the LIES home page
return to the A&A home page